


Homestuck: A Novel

by Anrisa Ryn (Anrisa)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 15,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anrisa/pseuds/Anrisa%20Ryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A novelization of the popular webcomic "Homestuck." For more information, go <a href="http://the-first-sburbian-novel.tumblr.com/post/40642992255/about-his-blog">here</a>.</p><p>For non-fanfiction works by this author, be sure to visit the <a href="http://anrisa.deviantart.com/">author's dA</a> and the <a href="http://www.movellas.com/en/people/profile/201208070115459726/viewMovellas">author's Movellas</a>.</p><p>Also check out the <a href="http://anrisaryn.tumblr.com/">author's tumblr</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/author.anrisaryn">facebook page</a>!</p><p>This work is also available to read on <a href="http://the-first-sburbian-novel.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 001901-001903

It was a bright morning for the strange young boy. Not only was the sun out, but it was also a rather special day for him. He blinked as he sat up and threw the covers off with a rush of excitment and raced over to his dresser. He threw on a shirt and pants, nearly tripping in the effort. Today was not only his birthday, but today was also the day he was to be named. Today was his naming day, and that was the greatest day of any young boy’s life, no matter what planet you might be from.

At first he wondered what his name might be. Many names flashed in his mind, the most noteable being “Zoosmell Pooplord." He was rather bad at coming up with names, so he dismissed this one quickly. But one name, seemingly placed in his head, really just stood out.

"John Egbert," he said aloud, testing it with his vocal chords. “I do like that one." His face lit up with excitment. From this moment forward, he was to be called John Egbert.


	2. 001904-001909

He looked about his room, taking stock of the various objects strew about. There were two large birthday cakes, one placed on top of a massive chest that was dappled with golden stars, and another placed on his dresser. While to many other people, this may seem like a rather strange placement of cakes, but it was John’s birthday, so he didn’t really care.

The posters on his wall displayed his odd interest in really terrible movies, though he had to admit that Ghostbusters wasn’t all that bad; Mac and Me could have been much better and Con Air was just silly. He nodded to himself, unashamed at his own strange interests.

The computer sat in the corner, which John tended to spend quite a lot of time on attempting to program various things, and generally failing at. He didn’t mind, though. There was plenty more things to do like practice his magic tricks. Perhaps one day he might become a real magician and perform for people.

He sighed at the thought. It wasn’t a sad sigh, though, more like a wistful and hopeful sigh. If that didn’t work out, there was always his intense interest in paranormal lore to keep him busy.

He wondered why he had been standing here thinking about all of this. Perhaps he wanted to take stock of his room. It did need a bit of cleaning.

Suddenly, and without warning, the cake that had sat on his magic supplies chest was lifted into the air by an unseen force. He blinked, watching the cake land with a soft thump on his bed. If it had been anywhere else, he might have cared a little more, but today was his birthday, and he had no fucks to give.

At least this gave him access to his magic chest. He opened it slowly, unsure of why he was being so careful. There had been hundreds of times he had opened it to gather magic supplies. Why was this day any different?

Inside there lay a pair of fake arms. Where had these come from?

"Did father put these in here?" he asked to no one in particular. Perhaps Father had thought they could be used for some hilarious antics. But as John held them in his small hands, they suddenly blipped out of existance. A small card appeared on the floor in front of him and he picked it up.

It was a picture of the arms.

"What is this?" John said, turning the card over. The other side appeared blank, so he turned it back over. The two arms were still pictured on the strange card. With a shrug, he pocketed the card, hoping he might find out its use later.

Inside the chest, there were various other objects: a pair of trick handcuffs, a stunt sword, a magician’s hat, a pair of beagle puss glasses, several smoke pellets, several blood capsules, a copy of Colonel Sassacre’s Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Jaspery, and a copy of Harry Anderson’s “Wise Guy," by  Mike Caveney.

John blinked, not realizing exactly what was in it. It was rather a lot, he had to admit. Over the years he had stuffed various pieces of his magical habit into this chest. He was just about to close it and find something else to do when the usefulness of the smoke pellets struck him. Perhaps these could come in handy later. One can never be too prepared on their birthday.


	3. 001910-001926

After looking around his room a bit more and getting frustrated at the card that contained the fake arms, John noticed a note on his dresser. It was written by Father, which was rather strange, since Father didn’t tend to write many notes. He picked it up and read it. It was a short and simple and read “Happy birthday, son. I am so proud of you." A rolled up poster sat next to it, so he picked it up and it appeared on one of those strange cards again.

What were these cards? The word “Captchalogue" popped into his mind as if someone had written it down on his brain. He shook his head and didn’t dwell on it.

Gathering hammer and nails, John quickly set about hanging up the poster. It was a little tricky manuevering around the Captchalogue, but eventually, the gift was hanging just next to his dresser. John smiled at his handywork. The Little Monsters poster gleamed like a newly painted wall. Father must be slightly psychic. It was just what he had wanted.

He glanced over at the calendar as he did every day in anticipation of two things. His birthday was clearly marked on the 13th of April, but three days earlier, a big X marked the supposed launch date of SBURB Beta, a game which he had ordered quite a while ago. He frowned. When was he going to get his prize in the mail? He was becoming rather impatient.

Breaking through his train of thought like an explosion, a soft beep (which right now sounded rather loud because of the quiet room) emenated from his computer. He glanced at the cakes sitting around his room and stuck out his tongue. He was sick of cake, but he was glad his Pesterchum had distracted him. Someone was trying to get his attention.

He smiled at the desktop background he had created himself. Slimer smiled back at him, his ghostly ooze always making John feel much better when he was down.

Opening the message, he was pleased to see it was from his friend "turntechGodhead." This was his pal Dave from across town.

"Hey, so what kind of insane loot did you rake in today?" Dave asked. John shooke his head. He often wondered why Dave spoke that way, but he didn’t question it.

"I got a Little Monsters poster," John replied back. “I think I’ll watch it again today."

The conversation continued a while, mostly about apple juice and monsters playing pranks by peeing in apple juice. But rather quickly, Dave seemed to get tired of it.

"Did you get your copy of SBURB yet?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Not yet," John typed back.

"I got two copies, but I don’t think I’ll play it," Dave typed. "Did you see how Game Bro slammed it?"

"You and me both know how much of a joke Game Bro is," John replied, snorting at his computer screen. “Let me go check my mail," he continued, typing quickly back. 

"Alright," Dave replied. “Maybe you got your copy finally."


	4. 001926-001936

John leapt up in anticipation and raced over to his window. The yard outside was empty save for the tired swing that hung from the tree like a tired opossum. It was rather quaint “ but he was happy to have the relic of his younger days. It was one of those things that fit “ that tire swing and tree “ much like a proper gentleman and his monocle.

The mailbox’s flag was up. John had never gotten the point of this flag, and he wasn’t sure which position meant which “ but the erect flag could mean his copy of SBURB was here! He turned to raced down the hall like a lunatic when the sound of a car caused his to turn back. Father was home “ and that only meant he would beat John to the mail

The boy sighed and decided the check it later. He knew if he went downstairs “ Father would monopolize hours of his time. He scowled, beginning to feel rather titularly stuck in his room.

Pesterchum bleeped for his attention, but he chose to ignore it. He was growing rather frustrated with everything now. Why was today so frustrating? It was his birthday! Why should it be so infuriating?

Pesterchum beeped again and he rolled his eyes, storming over to the computer.

“Maybe if I change my status to something less friendly people will leave me alone” he said, clicking the  “bully “ status on his instant messenger. It didn’t seem to do much. That message window kept blinking at him. He frowned and clicked it.

It was Dave again. He asked if John had recieved his game, to which the boy promptly answered no.

“That’s too bad,” Dave replied. But he quickly changed the subject.  “TT’s been bugging me all day. I think she’s attracted to me. “TT” or “tentacleTherapist,” also known as Rose, was a very strange individual. It was hard to believe she was even remotely attracted to Dave, but John went along with it.

“Well, you are pretty attractive” he typed back.  “I mean, I’m attracted to you.” Dave typed back a few letters of amusement. If John hadn’t been so self-conscious, he wouldn’t have replied. But he was, so he did.

"JK, haha, but no, I’ve been spending most of the day messing around with this sylladex and captchalogue crap," he replied, venting his frustration.

"What’s your modus?" Dave typed back.

Modus? What was this word? John had never heard of it before. “What are you talking about?" he typed to Dave.

"How do you take articfacts and stuff out of your captchalogue?" Dave replied.

"Oh," John typed, feeling rather dumb. “Well, I put something in it, and something else falls out."

"Haha, stack," Dave replied. He went on to explain that his “modus" was “hash map," whatever that was, and apparently John should brush up on his data structures, and that he was able to “allocate his strife specibus"  which could apparently be used to attack stuff.

John was even more confused now. He felt his head spinning as Dave explained that he should “allocate the hammer" that he had to the specibus.

"What am I supposed to do with these fake arms then?" John was growing frustrated and desperate for answers.

"I don’t know, combine them with something to make room," Dave typed back.

What was going on? What was all this? John just wanted it to all make sense.

"Uhg," he sighed, standing up from the computer chair. Not knowing what else to do, he threw the card that had the fake arms on it at the nearby cake on his bed. The arms exploded out of the card like some crazy Pokemon and began to grow from the cake.

"Well, that’s one way to do it," John said with a frown.


	5. 001937-001959

John, now having freed up some of his strange cards, now tried to do as Dave had instructed. He searched his pockets, hoping to find something that might give him a  clue. A strange black card that he had never seen before was burried under his pink Captchalogue cards.

"Where did this come from?" John frowned. “Where are all these cards coming from?" He had to sit down to prevent himself from falling over. The card was labled with a long list of “kinds." There seemed to be “batkind," “pokerkind," and “nailgunkind," along with a long list of others as well. He felt encouraged to select the proper one for his hammer, so with his small pointer finger, he touched the word “hammerkind."

The Captchlogue card containing his hammer flickered for a minute. He blinked, watching it fade out of existance. Then it appeared on the blank side of the new black-colored card, flashing for a moment, and then turning green. His hammer was now a green card. John didn’t really know how to react. His beautiful pink hammer card was now an ugly neon green.

The boy raced over to his computer to contact Dave again. He was worried he was doing it wrong.

"Okay, I did it," he typed to Dave.

"Hammerkind?" Dave replied. “Oh, yeah, and I should mention, that’s a permanent allocation for your specibus," he added.

John gave himself a facepalm. He knew he should have chosen a better weapon. But he also couldn’t imagine it making much of a difference. When was he ever going to need a weapon? This little town was boring as all heck. Nothing ever happened here.

"I hope you like hammers, dude!" Dave typed. John scowled. The last thing he needed was Dave mocking his pain.

At least he had space in his Captchalogue. He paused for a moment wondering why this had suddenly appeared today. It was rather handy to carry around a stack of cards than all of the stuff he had wanted to carry in his pockets before, even if it was rather strange. He wondered if the release of SBURB had anything to do with it.

He shook his head, glancing aorund his room. There was much more interesting stuff to worry about than worrying about some cards.

Now he had some space in his Captchalogue at least. Time to have a little fun. The GameBro magazine caught his attention, and though the review of his highly anticipated game that resided inside was rather horrible, he still decided to captchalogue it anyway. It might make some good burning material later.

The open magician’s trunk caught his attention. Without really thinking, he added the wizard hat to his Captchalogue. No one really needed to know about it, but John would after put it on to feel extra magical. A beagle puss (a pair of glasses with a nose and mustache attached that was vaguely reminiscent of Groucho Marx) also made him smile. He tried to captchalogue it, but it combined with the wizard hat to create something called “clever disguise."

"What is that? How did that happen?" John asked himself, examining the card. He touched it with his finger and suddenly did not feel like John Egbert anymore. He was wearing said “clever disguise." For a moment, he stood there, slightly confused, then a slow relization came over him. What an excellent turn of events. Now he could fool his father long enough to grab SBURB and avoid the hours of time the older man might monopolize. GENIUS.

He smiled at his cleverness and raced downstairs pasted the various clown (or rather harlequin) paintings his father so loved. He often called them clowns, but his father would always correct him. It drive John crazy.

As his raced by the fireplace, he grinned, tossing the GameBro magazine into the flames. That’s the end of that! But in his excitment, he accidently knocked over the urn that sat on top of the mantle - the urn that contained his Nana’s ashes.

John cursed silently and tried to clean up the mess. This urn was a very valuable possession of his father’s and if he found out, there would be hell to pay. Father’s anger was not something to be toyed with.

Thinking quickly, John Captchalogued the ashes, then quickly combined them with the urn. What a quick solution! It was mostly cleaned up, and he was sure no one would notice. He hoped. He was proud of his quick reaction, and was even more proud when he spotted his father’s pipe.

_What a perfect disguise!_ the boy thought as he combined the pipe with the Clever Disguise.

He was much less pleased to see the rather large gift that his father had left for him turned out to be a  _harlequin_  doll. He groaned. What is with these  _harlequins_?!


	6. 001960-001987

The doll glared back at him, almost daring him to move. John frowned at it, trying to ignore the strange eyes. It was so creepy. There had to be something he could do to remove the creep factor.

An idea suddenly popped into his mind. If he added those fake arms, would it remove some of the creepiness? It was worth a try. Abandoning his quest for the mail, he detoured back to his room to pick up the fake arms that were lodged in the oddly placed birthday cake on his bed.

A beep from his computer caught his attention as he installed the arms onto a Captchalogue card. It was Rose, or tentacleTherapist, as he Pesterchum indicated.

"I understand you have recently come into possession of the beta release of “The Game of the Year", as featured in respectable periodicals such as GameBro Magazine," she had written. John blinked a few times, trying to decode what she had said. Did she always have to make everything so complicated?

"That’s an ugly rumor. Whoever told you that is a filthy liar," John typed back. “And you should probably stop hitting on him all the time."

"I can’t help it. I must have a thing for insufferable pricks." She replied so sarcastically, John could almost feel the snideness oozing from the computer screen. If she was there in the room, John would probably have seen her chuckle.

"No, I don’t have it yet," John continued, changing the subject. “I think Dad has it. I’ll go get it now."

"You’re wearing one of your silly disguises right nowm aren’t you?" Rose typed. John felt a shiver run through him. How did she know?

"Of course not!" he lied, peering around the room as if he felt Rose to be here. “Why would you think that?"

"Okay, then go get the game from your dad," Rose typed back, almost as if it was a challenge.

"Got you," John replied quickly. “I was wearing a silly disguise the whole time." Rose always managed to make him feel rather uncomfortable, even if they didn’t get to see each other very often.

"I know," she replied eerily. He frowned, not expecting that answer. But he didn’t think of it further. It was time to confront his father.

On his way back down, he passed by the large doll again and attached the fake arms, happily removing quite a bit of the creep factor. He looked about for his father, but the older man was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was in his study?

John peeked into the study, where his father usually spent his days. A small desk say against the wall, partnered with a coat rack that help an umbrella and a strange pair of hats. In the far corner was a large dark safe, and a piano. What kind of study was this? John shook his head, not prepared to question his father’s methods.

The desk was scattered with playing cards, and mixed in with the aces and spades was a spare Captchalogue card. John swept it up with zeal and added it to his pink card collection. But something was rather strange. He looked back at the card and realized he had Captchalogued a Captchalogue card. How is that even possible?

He groaned and grabbed one of the hats, which appeared to be a bowlers hat. Maybe this would improve his mood. He left the wizard hat in its place and began feeling rather dapper in spite of his angry mood.

Bypassing the TV, John raced to the door, hoping the mail would still be in the mailbox. If this were indeed true, he might have a chance to avoid the dreaded Father encounter. But of course, there was no such luck. A strange feeling of isolation swept over him as he looked up at the sky, the white sun appearing much like a cloud.

He paced over to the car, hoping the mail might be in there. Sometimes his father forgets to actually bring the mail inside, so there was always a chance this could be true.

Peering inside, there appeared to be no mail. There was however, a strange olive-green package on the car seat with a small slip of paper underneath. Could this be the mail? He shook his head. Not, it had no SBURB logo.

There was one more option. The boy, rather strange looking in his disguise, approached the kitchen window from the outside. The windows were rather foggy, which probably meant Father was baking. This was something he really seemed to enjoy doing. But that was not his concern. A red package sat by the window, along with a PDA and…an envelope with the SBURB logo! His game was here! Finally!

The window was locked, however, so any attempt to avoid Father was now out of the question. John sighed, but put his faith in the Clever Disguise and braved his way back inside.


	7. 001988-002004

Upon entering the kitchen, John found his Father standing in the middle of the room holding yet another cake for the boy. How many cakes was the man going to make?

Much to his dissapointment, the Clever Disguise had no affect whatsoever. John sighed. He should have expected this. He Captchalogued the Clever disguise, shoving the pink card back into his pocket. Father still stood in the way, blocking the one path he had to the mail.

There was only one way to settle this. There had to be a Strife!

_Wait, what’s a Strife?_  John thought. But it was already underway.

A strange midi tune began to play from somewhere. John glanced around, trying to find the source, but to no avail. It seemed he had entered a sort of battle mode. Battle mode? With his father? What?

Two large buttons appeared before him, seemingly floating in the air. One was labled “Aggrieve," the other “Abjure." His vocabularly was not that complex, so he made a note to Dictionary.com them later. He selected the first - Aggrieve. The hammer he had put into that green card earlier appeared in his hand, and some unseen force guided him to…attack his father? What?

Fortunatly, his father used something called “Auto-pastry." He was glad for this, because hurting his father was not really in his daily agenda. 

So apparently, “Aggrieve" meant to attack. Okay, note taken.

The other button became the only option.

When he selected “Abjure," his father began to shove the cake at him. Thankfully, he had selected the “Abjure" option, which seemed to mean “guard," so he could resist the delicious-looking cake.

There was no time to be attacking Father! There must be another option! John quickly dodged around his dad, somehow activating a third button that was labled “Abscond." Was this “run away?" He selected it, but an angry sounding protest beep sounded, indicating he could not. Why!

Father revealed a small pie he had been hiding behind his back. There was only one thing he could be doing with that. John quickly re-equipped the Clever Disguise, and braced for impact.

The apparently renamed “Beagle Aegis" absorbed most of the impact. The pie tin, now stuck to his face, was blocking his view. Thinking quickly, he Captchalogued the pie tin, and unequipped the Clever Disguise, putting it back on the pink card.

But there was no room for anything new! The smoke pellets came tumbling from the Captchalogue and landed on the floor with a plop. At first the boy was angry, but then a smile creeped onto his face. The smoke pellets could provide just the distraction he was looking for!

But, the smoke pellets did nothing. They just sat on the kitchen floor like a set of unused diet pills. Those pills never did anything anyway. He wasn’t sure why his dad had even tried them.

One last option! The older man came toward’s John, the massive cake leading the charge. With the last of his strength, John “Acceded" the pastry, shoving it into his Captchalogue like a ship into a bottle. The force of the impact, and lack of space in his deck, caused the giant book “Colonal Sassacre’s Daunting Text" (which he had Captchalogued earlier) to fly out and land on the smoke pellets.

Smoke began to fill the room. While Father was distracted, John raced over and grabbed his PDA. This was also a good move, as this forced the Captchalogued Captchalogue Card to actually become part of the deck and thus, became useful. John tried to not think about why or how because it just made his head hurt. Either way, it gave him a new space to work with.

Putting the red package and the SBURB envelope into his Captchalogue, he raced out of the kitchen, leaving the Clever Disguise sitting on the floor for his father to discover later. There was no reason to hang onto it anyway, right?

Before racing upstairs, though, John spotted the strange clown on the couch. One of the arms had fallen off and landed in the cake sitting next to it.

_It would be nice to get rid of some of these cakes,_  John thought. He decided the best way to do this was to combine them, so he quickly Captchalogued the cake with the arm in it, and attempted to combine it with his father’s cake as the pie tin shot out of the card and landed on the couch with a thump.

But, much to his dismay, trying to combine the two cakes resulted in combining EVERYTHING in his captchalogue. He facepalmed and groaned. What was he going to do with a package-envelope-PDA-double-decker-arm-cake?

Shaking his head in frustration, he headed upstairs to get some towels. Cake dissection was messy business.


	8. 002005-002010

The bathroom was neat and tidy, as it always had been. The large window peered out at the backyard, looking over the swing set and pogo ride that John has spent so many years enjoying when he was younger.

John shook his head, forcing himself to focus. Quickly retrieving the towel and his father’s razor from the sink, he performed a sort of surgery on the package-envelope-PDA-double-decker-arm-cake. The package and envelope came out rather easily, so he cleaned it off with the handy towel.

Perhaps the items left would come in handy later, so John Captchalogued the manhandled cake, the towel, the razor, and of course his package and envelope. The lack of space inexplicably forced the cake to fly off the card and into the toilet. Why did this keep happening? He groaned and headed back to his room, hoping Father wouldn’t notice the cake-filled toilet until later.

Back in his room, John took a moment to admire his Matthew McConaughey wall. It was a strange obsession for a boy his age, he had to admit, but Matthew was a rather good actor.

The sound of Pesterchum bleeping at him threw him out of his musings. There were quite a few messages for him. Had he been away that long?

The first was from gardenGnostic, or Jade, his rather wealthy friend from that A high-tech tower on a Pacific island. Or at least that’s what she said. How did she manage that? Living on an island was cool and all, but it was rather isolated, John thought.

She had typed a birthday wish to him, a simple “hi happy birthday john!!!!! <3". It was sad that he had missed her. She had also typed a “helloooooo??" and a “ok i will talk to you later!!! :D" while he had been gone.

The other was TG, or Dave again. He had left a message saying that Jade had wanted to speak to him.

"Why are you so popular all the sudden?" he typed. “Did you do something to curry favor with the ladies? Did you break a leg on a puppy or some shit? Dude what are you doing?"

John snorted, amused that Dave had had to wait for him. He took a moment to think of a witty response. “I discovered a comet that is going to destroy the earth, and it was named after me. Now I am famous, and everyone wants to talk to me a lot."

He could feel the annoyance rolling off Dave’s response. “No. Just no. Stop it with your awful movies and your gross man-crush on Matthew MaConney. It’s an unsavory thing to behold."

John smiled at the response. Maybe Rose was rubbing off on him a bit. But Dave was still going, and was now saying that Matthew’s last name sounded like the lame sound a horse makes, which was dumb, therefore Matthew McConaughey was dumb. If John hadn’t been so confident in himself, he would have crumpled right then and there.

But then Dave started insulting Nicholas Cage.

"You don’t even like him ironically, do you?" Dave sneered through the text.

"I do like things ironically sometimes," John typed with a frown. “But speaking of ironic," This was the throwback. This was revenge! “what about what I sent you for your birthday?"

"No, those are awesome," Dave responded.

What? His retort was ruined! “How are they awesome? They’re supposed to be ironic!" John typed angrily.

"That’s what makes them awesome."

"You’re wearing them, aren’t you?"

"Of course. They’re awesomely ironic."

"Even after they touched Stiller’s weird, sort of gaunt face at one time?" John hoped at least this would sting.

"Ew, yeah, oh well," Dave replied.

John sighed. It was worth a try.

"You got SBURB right?" Dave asked. John began to wonder why he cared so much.

"I thought you didn’t like it," he typed.

"Not gonna play it, no," Dave quickly typed back. “Ask TT to play. She’s offline now. I think her internet is having problems. Should be back soon."

"Okay," John replied simply.

"You still using stack modus?" Dave added. “Dude you need to bone up on your data structures."

John rolled his eyes, but replied with a simple “Okay I will."


	9. 002011-002033

Now that he had what he had been looking for, John knew the moment had come to do what he had been wanting to do all day: play SBURB! Out of habit, he did a quick check on the latest MS Paint Adventures, but it didn’t look quite as exciting as he had hoped. Oh well, there were better things to be done right now.

He opened the CD tray on his machine and stuch the SBURB CD in. The computer did a a few quick somethings-or-other, and then said it was looking for an internet connection. It wasn’t moving very fast, so he had a bit of time. He shrugged and decided he had better take Dave’s advice and bone up on some data structures.

The closet held John’s various programming books. He had a rather small collection, but he was proud of it none-the-less. The Data Structure book was much less inviting than he remembered. The large green angry face on the front seemed to be shouting at him whilst saying “DATA STRUCTURES FOR ASSHOLES!" in rather large text.

Actually, John observed  it was saying “Your ignorance just made me throw up a little. Get a clue, you computer-illiterate piece of shit."

At least there was a free “fetch Modus" on the back, whatever that meant.

The inside plastic sleeve contained a gray-bordered orange card that said “FIFO."

"FIFO?" John said, picking up the strange card. Instantly, he Captchalogue changed to the orange color, and the method of retrieving items changed to “First in, first out." “Isn’t that the method supermarkets use?" John wondered. 

Unfortunatly, this made the red package inaccesible. He sighed. How did this help him? This Modus wasn’t very helpful at all. He tried to switch it back to how it was before, but he wasn’t sure how. He heaved a groan of impatience and quickly Captchalogues the two cakes laying around his room to rid himself of the razor he had picked up in the bathroom.

The razor, much to the boy’s dismay, was sent flying across the room into the beautiful face of Matthew McConaughey.

"No!" John cried, furvently wishing the razor had Failed to Launch. He frowned, both pleased at his pun and angry about the flying razor.

The magic chest was still open, so there lay the perfect oppertunity to force the red package into his hands. Thinking quickly, he Captchalogued his favorite childhood book  _Wise Guy_  by Mike Caveney. The towel fluttered out of the Captchalogue like a fallen leaf.

Next, the trick handcuffs. John Captchalogued them, forcing the PDA out of the deck. It rocketed across the room and smashed through his bedroom window with a loud crash, followed by the tinkling of glass as it landed on the yard outside. Why did this process have to be so violent?

Well, at least the package was accessable now, right? It was bound by a lot of tape, though. The razor would be perfect to open it.

"Oh shit," John muttered, realizing that Captchaloging the razor caused the package to drop. He groaned. Back to square one now. This was getting frustrating.

After a bit of shuffling around, he expelled the cake, the book, and the handcuffs (not without a few more injuries and damages). The cake was now on the street outside, while a second one was stuck to his wall. He wasn’t sure where the book or handcuffs was now, but that didn’t matter. He set on the packages like a hungry ape. What could possibly be inside?

He gasped as the contents were revealed to be a small stuffed and rather dirty rabbit. It looked like the rabbit held hostage briefly by Malkovich’s Cyrus “The Virus" while taunting hard-luck protagonist Cameron Poe. And strikingly similar to the one scooped up from the soot of a burning Vegas strip by Cage’s Poe and offered to his daughter, a gesture symbolic of a tattered exterior surrounding a heart of gold. Poe wasn’t much to look at. But he was a good man.

In fact, it was the same one! John gave a quiet squeal of delight and set it on his bed. Today was so awesome!

But now it was time to do what he had been waiting for. PLAY SBURB!


	10. 002034-002052

The SBURB client indicated that it was connected, and instructed John to press ENTER. But the Pesterchum window blinked enticingly, so he decided to check that first.

It was Rose again. She seemed to be able to tell that he had installed SBURB already. John shook his head, wondering how she managed that.

"Okay, I’m going to try to connect," she typed.

"Hey, woah, okay," John responded. She seemed rather eager, and he was still trying to catch up with the fact that she knew nearly everything that was going on at any given moment. He changed the subject, giving himself time to think. “I just got an awesome present!"

"The Rabbit?" Rose’s typed response came rather quickly. John blinked, getting rather frustrated that she already knew about Dave’s gift as if he’d told her. He hadn’t. She really needed to stop!

He frowned, decided he should think nothing of it for now.

"I’ve heard tales of this wretched creature often. Its Homeric legend is practically ensconced in the fold of my personal mythology by now," she added.

"What?" John typed back. Not only was she psychic, but her vocabulary made his head hurt.

"Why don’t we focus on the matter at hand?" she replied.

"Okay, but I don’t really know how it works," he admitted.

"You are running the client application. I am running the server, so I am the host user. I have established a connection with you. This is sufficient for us to play the game," she explained.

"Uh, okay." What else was there to say?

"Why don’t we get started?" she suggested.

Without a response, John pressed enter on the client. His entire screen slowy faded to a white background and the SBURB logo - the circular Spirograph. A loading bar, colored in a nice shade of green, began slowly filling below it, followed by a rather catchy midi tune. John felt himself bobbing along with the beat. When it was finally loaded, a fancy SBURB title popped up.

John grew more and more excited by the second, waiting to see what would happen next. But what was happening now was rather not what he had expected.

It is important to note that right about now, Rose was sitting in her room, looking at John through her screen. While Rose did not know much about the game itself, she had played Sims before, and was not all surprised at the layout. What was surprising was that it was Sims, but John was the Sim. Well, rather not, but Rose was now viewing John as he was at the moment as if he were a Sim. This is probably the best way to explain it without being confusing, but whatever SBURB was exactly, it had given Rose access to John’s  room in a way she had never imagined.

Not sure what to do, she moved her mouse over to the magic chest that contained Johns magical items. She selected it and zoomed out until she could see the roof of John’s house. Then she dropped the chest onto the roof.

John was rather upset about this. He let her know through a Pesterchum window.

"Woah, what are you doing?" he asked, concerned his Magic chest had disappeared. 

"Sorry," Rose typed back. She wasn’t sure how to even react to what was happening, so she coped by treating John exactly like a Sim. It was rather strange to have a Sim that could respond, but it would have to do. “I’m just getting a feel for the controls."

"Yes," she stated. But when John responded with a particularly tragic sad face, she added: “I will try to be more careful next time."

John, rather perturbed his treasured magic chest was now on the roof, crossed his arms and leaned back on his chair. Something pink caught his eye, and in a stroke of luck, he realized it was the Stack Fetch Modus. This meant that the FIFO method of his Captchalogue could finally be changed to something a bit more workable. He learned also that he could not apparently switch methods any time he wanted, so in a moment of joy, he began to toggle them back and forth with gleeful abandon.

Glancing out the window, John was relived to see his father once again leaving the house. Perhaps he was out for more baking supplies. This was good, though. He had the house to himself for a bit. He just hoped Father wouldn’t notice the Magic Chest on the roof or all of the stuff that he threw out of the window.

Well, since Rose had access to everything in and around his house, maybe she could help him clean up. John typed her a Pesterchum message asking her the exact thing.

"I’ll give it a shot," she typed back. She looked at her screen, zooming out so that she could see the items John had indicated. But much to her dismay, the program did not allow her to. “It looks like it may be too far out of range. It’s not close enough to you, the ‘player.’"

_I wonder if I can move John in order to get the items he wants,_ Rose thought. She moved the cursor towards John and attempted to click him. In a surprised frenzy, John automatically abjured the cursor. Apparently she could not select John.

_Well, there’s that, but I still have to get used to these controls,_ she reasoned. She selected the bunny that John had received as a gift. It’s dirt covered exterior made her wonder why he loved it so much.

John watched as the strange cursor lifted his treasured rabbit and put it back into the box. He wasn’t opposed to this, so a small grin brightened his face. Rose found it rather amusing that this simple action could make him smile. Perhaps he thought this action could protect the embarrassingly soiled bunny from being further soiled. 

As in most similar games, Rose found she was able to add to the size of the room. It was still strange that she could do this to a real house, but she did it none-the-less. Adding a small square the room caused the whole house to shudder. She blinked, realizing she actually had just added a small square of actual house to an actual house in the actual real world. Why didn’t construction workers just use SBURB all the time and save everyone time and materials?  _How was this even possible?_

What was even more extraordinary was the build menu. She could actually and literally create a machine from this list and place it in John’s actual house. If she wasn’t such an intelligent girl, her brain would have probably exploded by now. But instead, she selected something called a “Totem Lathe" and deployed it into the new space she had created in John’s room.

John blinked at the new device. He tried to get an idea of what it was, but much to his dismay, could figure nothing out.

If this was what SBURB was, messing up his house, he just hoped his father wouldn’t be too mad when he returned home. John sighed. One could only hope.


	11. 002053

On the other end of the connection, Rose discovered an icon that looked much like a blue Gusher. She thought about mentioning this observation to John, but she shook her head, deciding it was better to figure out what it was first. She clicked it and it opened a new window.

The window showed mostly question marks, but the first slot showed the blue Gusher thing and a bar, presumably showing percentage, that was labeled “16/20." 

"It seems expanding the dimensions of your room cost us some ‘Build Grist.’ But deploying the lathe did not appear to incur any expense," she typed to John. “It looks like certain objects are freebies, probably to help you set up the game."

John replied quickly, eager to find out more. “Wow, okay. What do they do?"

"I think it’s up to you to find out. I can just pick up and drop things around your house," Rose typed back.

"How do I move stuff around?" John asked. “That looks like fun!"

"I don’t think you can, as the client. You should have received both in separate envelopes. I am running both on my computer right now."

John looked around for the envelope and found it quickly, but there was no other CD in it. He frowned and replied to Rose. “I didn’t get it."

"Once you install the server and establish a connection, I’m sure you will be able to manipulate my environment in the same manner," she explained. “Are you sure you didn’t get it?"

"Oh no," John typed, rather annoyed now. “I think I know where it is."


	12. 002054-002059

The CD was in the car. John rolled his eyes, annoyed that that meant he would have to go outside and get it. But he didn’t feel like getting up and bothering his dad for the key.

Rose suggested something a little more productive. “Now that the room is bigger, why not move to the far corner. That way I can extend the room further and reach those items that you…threw out of the window…for some reason."

"Sounds like a good idea," he typed back with a nod.

"What have you been doing all afternoon anyway?" Rose asked, curiously.

"Oh, mostly messing with this sylladex thing. It’s a little confusing, but I think I have it under control now. What modus do you use?"

"I like to use trees," she typed back.

John, not entirely sure what this meant, made a note to check the exact definition later. But it did sound rather awkward. He relayed this feeling to his friend.

"They are not exceptionally practical," she agreed, “but I think they are rather elegant."

John wished to shout at her that practicality was much more logical (and Rose was a logical person in the most part), but he thought it rather useless. Rose would do what she wanted when she wanted, he reasoned.

In thinking about this, he moved to the corner anyway. The objects he had shot out the window came floating back with the aid of the strange green cursor he had abjured earlier. This was a good thing, though. Now he never had to wonder what his father would say if they were found on the street.

A loud thump echoed from downstairs. Was Rose doing something? Another loud thump sounded from the roof as well. Worried, John rushed back to his PC.

"Why is the floor shaking?" he demanded. “Are you dropping more stuff in my house?"

"Yes," Rose typed back, a little more matter-of-factly than he had hoped. “Two more large gizmos."

"Huh? To what end? I mean, what are we supposed to be doing in this game?" he replied, frowning.

"That remains to be seen," she typed back, rather cryptically. “Why don’t you go and investigate?"

If he was going to look around, there had to be an easier way to speak to Rose. Quickly looking around, John spotted the PDA that she had retrieved for him. He picked it up and clicked it on, suprised at how clean the surface was - nearly untouched. The device itself was rather sterile: no clowns, bright colors, anything. The application called Serious Business was open, listing various contacts and a sort of schedule. He guessed this is where Father kept track of his street performance things. It did seem to be a rather Serious Business.

_No time for that,_  John thought, shaking his head. With the press of a few buttons, Pesterchum was installed on the PDA. He hoped Father wouldn’t mind.


	13. 002060-002067

The balcony, which was normally empty, save for his telescope that John used to view various celestial anomalies, now contained a very large platform, on which appeared to be a Devil’s Trap. 

_Oh, no, it’s different,_ John reasoned. It did look more like a scientific symbol rather than the former.

He looked down at the PDA in his hand and realized he should probably contact Rose.

"Hey, I’m on the balcony now," he messaged her. “I’m using my dad’s PDA."

"The one you threw out in the yard?" she typed back accusingly.

"No!" John protested. It was tricky to type on something so small, but he managed. “I’m telling you! It jumped out of my Sylladex like a frightened weasel."

"What were you doing with it in the first place?" Rose typed. “I am not sensing a lot of regard for the personal property of others. Is this how your pent-up frustration with your father manifests itself?"

"What? No," he rolled his eyes and frowned, typing awkwardly with his thumbs. “Those were all accidents. Please take your psycho-babblery elsewhere, miss!"

"You bathroom is a mess. Did you do that, too?" John could feel the mockery in her typed words.

"Oh man, see this isn’t cool. All this snooping nonsense!"

"Is that a cake in the toilet?"

"Why yes it is," he replied, feeling strangely proud.

"I’m tempted to clean it up for you," she stated.

"OK, if that will satisfy your weird OCD complex then go ahead!"

"My Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder complex?" she typed. John was sure she was mocking him. “Can a disorder also be a complex?"

"In your case, probably!" he replied. “Anyway, I am going to have a look at this enormous platform-y thing you put on the balcony."

He waited a moment for a reply from Rose, but when nothing came, decided to visually inspect the platform before taking further action. He couldn’t find any controls, so as a last resort, he hoisted himself onto the circular platform.

That voice inside his head told him this was probably not a good idea, so instead he decided his time was better spent looking through the telescope.

While nothing seemed out of the ordinary, at first glance, John couldn’t help feeling something big was going to happen soon.

A strange thumping crash sounded from inside the house and caused the boy to turn swiftly. The Pesterchum on the PDA showed one word.

"Whoops."

"Whoops what?" he demanded.

In her cleaning efforts, Rose had managed to totally remove the soiled toilet from the floor. She gritted her teeth in embarrassment on the other end and made an improvised effort to hide her mistake by placing  John’s toilet in his backyard. She glaced sideways as if John was sitting right next to her. 

_He’ll never notice,_ she thought.  _I hope._

"What was that noise? Is it something I should investigate?" she read from John’s Pesterchum window.

"No, I have it under control," she said quickly. “Just go back to playing with your telescope."

John sighed. This meant she did something rather bad, didn’t it? He raced back into the house and yanked open the bathroom door. 

The sight before him made his blood run cold. The floor now had a massive hole in it and there was water leaking everywhere, not to mention the absent toilet.

"Auhg!" he shouted to the air.

"I can patch it up," Rose’s Pesterchum window beeped. “Just give me a bit of space. Go take a look at that thing in the living room," she suggested. " Rose’s Pesterchum window beeped. “Just give me a bit of space. Go take a look at that thing in the living room," she suggested. “I believe it’s called the Cruxtruder."

Without so much as thinking, John automatically leaped down the hole left by the absent and soiled toilet. He landed on top of the dryer and felt much like a ninja. But then, having realized what he’d done, he stood dazed for a few seconds.

A sledge hammer on the floor of the utility room caught his eye.

"Ah, another hammer!" he exclaimed. A green card lay next to it, rather conveniently, and he automatically combined it to create another weapon on the Hammerkind card he made earlier. Apparently this Strife Specibus thing allowed him to quickly access weapons.

Maybe he was getting the hang of this card crap after all.


	14. 002068-002073

The ding of the Pesterchum app on the PDA made John stop his celebrations. It was Jade again. He smiled at the device thinking of her intense enthusiasm.

"Hey, John! Did you get my package???" she had typed just minutes ago. “It’s the green box!"

He typed awkwardly on the tiny keyboard. “Hey, Jade!" he replied. “Yeah, I got it, but I left it in Dad’s car, and he’s out at the store. Hopefully he’ll be back soon."

"Oh, that’s good!!!" Jade typed back. “What have you been up to today??"

"I am up to my neck in this SBURB stuff. Rose is making a mess of my house," he replied with an amused grin.

"LOL! What’s SBURB??" Jade typed.

"I’m not quite sure, honestly. It’s a game, but we’re still trying to figure it out."

"Woah what was that???" Jade seemed worried about something.

"What? Did something happen?" John typed back, unsure of what she meant.

"I heard something outside my house!! It sounded like an explosion!!!"

"Wow, really?" John raised his eyebrows at her chat window.

"I will go outside and look….." she typed back, rather ominously.

"Okay, but be careful, ok?" he typed, a bit worried.

"I will!! :)" she replied before logging off.

John stood in the spot for a few seconds, wondering whether he should give her a call to make sure she was okay. He shook his head, dismissing the thought and assured himself that she would be fine. Plus, there was more important matters at hand like identifying this “Cruxtruder" that Rose had mentioned.

He wandered into the living room, thinking he might have to look around more for this machine. But it was right in the middle of the room, looming over the clown - sorry, harlequin - doll on the couch. He frowned, quickly realizing it was placed right in the doorway to the kitchen.

"Oh, hell no," he typed quickly to Rose, rather annoyed. “You put this thing in front of the door?"

"There’s a door there?" Rose replied. John facepalmed at this message.

"Yes! Yes, there is a door!" he exclaimed vocally, flailing his arms around. Then he realized he had to actually type it to her. But she got the message eventually.

"I didn’t see it there," Rose admitted. “I thought it just fit nicely into the groove there."

"You mean you did this because you thought it was elegant?" he growled, typing his answer. He knew what she would say already, so he simply continued. “Okay, well, what do I do with this thing then?"

John waited for a few moments, but no reply came.

"Hello?" he messaged her. But no reply again. Did something happen? “Hello? What are you doing up there now?"

As if in answer, another crash sounded from the bathroom. Rose finally replied, but with only two words that made John turn white.

"Oh fuck."

"What did you do?" John demanded.

"Nothing," Rose replied. “Just go get to know that Cruxtruder."

John groaned and rolled his eyes, and climbed on the base of the strange machine. A wheel beckoned his attention and he tried to turn it. It turned easily enough, but it appeared it caused the top of the machine to rise. Was this a cover? He didn’t feel strong enough to successfully remove it. He growled and pushed on the wheel, but the lid remained intact.

A groan of plumbing made John look up. He went white again at the sight of the bathtub floating above the stairs.

"What are you doing?" he typed angrily at Rose. She didn’t reply, and that made him even more nervous. “Rose!"

The bathtub dropped out of the air at the top of the stairs with a loud crunch. Father was going to have a fit if he saw this. “Rose!!!!!"

No reply came. John felt faint. His house was a wreck - first the toilet, now the entire bathtub. What next?


	15. 002074 - 002079

John was both amused and annoyed that there was now a bathtub at the top of his staircase. He glanced at the PDA and frowned. Rose was offline.

As he thought this, however, her window blinked up and he typed to her.

"Can you see me?" he asked, hoping her Server screen had loaded. He stepped into the bathtub and made a face. “Tell me what’s wrong with this picture."

Her reply came slow. “Sorry. I keep losing the wireless signal. Must be the weather," she typed. “I would look for a stronger signal in another part of the house, but I’d rather not risk an encounter with my mother. I battled through her cloud of gin and derision once already this evening."

"Oh yeah," John responded. “I know how that is."

"Yes. Cake, jesters, unfaltering love and support," came her sarcastic answer. “Quite a road to hoe there. Though I suppose I’m complicit for not informing Social Services about your situation."

"I know! For real!" John chuckled. “What if you went outside? Would that help? Maybe you can catch a neighbor’s signal."

"Well, I would, but it presents a slight problem. It’s raining outside, and dark."

John had forgotten that she lived on the other side of the country. “It’s already dark there?"

"Yes, the sun has already had its way with us here on the east coast. Its lurid glare has moved on to younger timezones."

Thinking back, John should have been prepared for this sarcastic reply. He wasn’t sure what to say to this, so he decided it was better to not reply. His confusion about what she said began to make him irritable, and in a fit of frustration he decided to take out the sledge hammer he had “strife specibus’d" earlier and smach the giant device that was blocking the door.

He didn’t expect the sledge hammer to be so unbearably heavy. He struggled with the weight of the object until Rose offered to help. The green cursor she controlled (which had been the culprit in both the toilet and the bathtub’s removal), acted as a helping hand and assisted in his swinging of the weapon. 

The hammer struck the Cruxtruder with a sound bang. John had expected there to be a massive dent in the machine, but instead, the entire thing lit up a neon blue color and appeared as if it would explode. But it didn’t, much to both of their surprises. Instead, the top opened up and an orb flew out.

"So this is why it wouldn’t open before," the boy reasoned. “I should have whacked it, not pulled it."

The orb flashed black and blue, much like the bruises John had expected to have already. The Spirograph shape that he had seen in the installation screen rotated at the center of it, changing shape at the same rapid speed of the flashing. He raised an eyebrow and wondered if he should be concerned or not.

What  _did_  worry him was the sudden appearance of a counting down clock. It was rather ominous, so he sent a message to Rose, hoping she might know.

As it turned out, she didn’t know either. She suggested he wait a few moments while she took a look at GameFAQs, hoping they might have something. But after a few moments of looking, she reported back that no one had really gotten this far yet.

"But as far as I know, you can now extract some ‘Cruxite,’" she instructed.

The strange blue orb floated about the room until it landed right about where the top that had just flown off the machine had come to rest. As if it were alive, it flew around the room in excitement as the Cruxite slid out of the machine and onto the floor. John frowned. It looked like a big blue cylindrical piece of poo. But, thinking about it, he supposed this was a rather bad simile.


	16. 002080 - 002084

Rose watched as John put the blue cruxite into his Captchalogue. She was getting a bit nervous about the countdown that was displayed on the Cruxinator, even though she had no idea what it meant.

"I feel like we should be hurrying. That countdown is making me nervous," she typed to him. John didn’t reply. She examined the screen, wondering why he hadn’t heard the beep from he PDA. “John?"

Suddenly, she realized what had happened. When Captchalogue-ing the cruxite, John had inadvertently put it on the top card, making the PDA inaccessable. She facepalmed and shook her head.

"Anyway, it looks like you are going to need this card too," she typed to John even though she knew he wouldn’t know what she was saying. She opened up the top menu on her computer and it displayed something called “pre-punched card." She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but it looked useful, so she deployed one into John’s living room.

John watched as a small blue card with holes in it floated lazily onto his carpet. He should have been used to random things appearing in his house by now, but he was still amazed when it happened.

He picked up the card and it automatically was placed in his Captchalogue. This caused one of the shards of glass to be expelled across the room, which sliced off a corner of the giant harlequin doll on the couch. He wished things wouldn’t explode from his Captchalogue so often. Someone might get hurt.

In order to access the PDA, John had to move it to one end of his Captchalogue. He sighed, adding two harlequin dolls to the deck, which of course made the last two shards of glass shoot across the room, leaving two decent-sized gashes in the poor doll. 

At least the PDA was free now. He switched his queue modus and looked at the divice. This card crap was getting annoying. Why couldn’t they all just use pockets? What ever happened to pockets? Did someone eat all the tailors?

The blue flying orb that had popped out of the Cruxinator earlier began to shake as if it had just downed a liter of coffee. It was making strange beeping sounds as if it were speaking.

"It seems to be saying something," Rose typed. “I can see a speech bubble above it, but it’s speaking in symbols."

"It’s following me around," John replied.

"That is probably the ‘Kernelsprite.’ It apparently needs to be ‘prototyped.’ Twice, actually. Whatever the hell that means." she observed, apparently looking through walkthroughs. John was glad she sort of knew what she was doing, even if he didn’t. “These walkthroughs are horrendously written."

"Hm, ok," John typed back. “Well, you have the cursor, so just do what you think you should so." He glanced around, and his eyes fell on the tub still at the top of the stairs. “Oh yeah, and fix my bathroom," he added.


	17. 002085 - 002087

But, instead of rushing off immediatly to repair his bathroom as he had asked, Rose decided to do a bit of experimentation. He  _had_  given her permission to do whatever she thought was best.

Clicking the harlequin doll and dragging it through the air, she dropped it on the Kernalsprite. She frowned, realizing how injured the poor doll looked, but her thoughts were interrupted by the bright flash that resulted from the action. Her entire screen went white and a chill ran through her as she realized something really bad might have happened to her computer.

The blue orb appeared on the white background and changed into another orb, but instead of the spyrograph shape on her screen, it was the head of the harlequin in its place. The harlequin seemed rather happy despite its injuries. The text “The KERNELSPRITE has been prototyped with the HARLEQUIN DOLL." appeared below the icon.

"What just happened?" John typed. Rose blinked at the screen returned to normal. The Kernalsprite was now shuddering as if it had just downed a liter of coffee. “It’s still trying to talk, but I still can’t understand its gobbledegook."

"That was only ‘Tier One Prototyping,’" Rose explained. “There is still another tier to the prototyping process. Which for all we know merely advances this entity through increasingly esoteric states of linguistics."

"But, the clock is ticking!" John said, flailing his arms. “We don’t have time for this asinine tom-foolery!" 

"Good thing I can hear you," Rose typed to his PDA.

"Well, we still don’t have time!" he typed back.

"For this unmitigated poppycock?"

"Extravagant hogwash!" John typed quickly into the PDA. “Okay, stop." He saw that she was typing a reply, and added “Stop typing whatever silly thing you’re typing. I’m going upstairs to the big platformy thing."

"You mean the alchemiter?" Rose corrected him.

"The what?" he typed, raising an eyebrow.

"Learn the lingo," was her only reply.


	18. 002088 - 002100

Much to John’s dismay, the Kernalsprite seemed to have followed him out onto the deck. It wasn’t making noise this time, so he shrugged and approached the Alchemiter.

Taking the pre-punched card from his pocket, or rather, more correctly, his captchalogue, he searched for a place to install it onto the Alchemiter. That was the only logical thing to do, at least in his mind. But there was no place to put the card.

So instead, he decided to explore his inventory. Or, was that what it was called? Something told him that he was to call it the “Atheneum," but he didn’t know what that meant. A small icon showed a picture of the blue, cylindrical thing that came out of the Cruxtruder earlier. It was attached to a green cube labled “perfectly generic object." John raised an eyebrow, unsure of what this meant.

_Well,_  thought the boy,  _maybe I should use the cruxite on this alchemiter thing._ There was really no other options available at the present moment, so trying anything he could was a decent idea. But the problem was, the cruxite was not at an accessible location in his captachlogue. He rolled his eyes and decided to captchalogue the telescope that sat on the deck. It might come in handy later, and it served the purpose of making the cruxite available.

Much to his dismay, though, this caused the PDA to rocket out of his captchalogue and onto the neighbor’s yard.

"Oh, well, I’ll get it later," he reasoned, placing the cruxite on the circular platform attached to the big machine. He hoped this was the right place to put it.

The kernalsprite began to get excited. Something strange must have been worrying it.

But John reasoned it was a silly kernalsprite. The only thing that happened was that a giant arm extended from next to the placed cruxite and began to scan the cylinder with a small laser as if gauging the size.

A small window popped up in front of him, seemingly floating in mid air. He blinked and, confused, but decided to create three “perfectly generic objects" simply because it was the only option.

"One thing after another," he groaned. “I still have no idea what’s going on."

The boy’s complaining came to an abrupt halt when, out of the corner of his eye, something strange was in the sky. He pulled the telescope from his captchalogue and looked toward the flying object. Whatever was up there, the kernalsprite seemed to not like it. Was this was it was getting worried about?

At first, John didn’t see much. It looked like a shooting star, but it was strange to see one so brightly in the day time. As it drew closer, he began to make out details. An image of the countdown timer flashed in his mind and suddenly he realized the object was a massive meteor shooting right toward his neighborhood. 

Did he cause this? What was going on? This was certainly a troubling development!

Despite the situation, John felt that he had left the kernalsprite hanging for too long and promptly high-fived it. The kernalsprite did not react. Instead, it kept shaking around in an agitated state.

Snapping back to the present, John gasped as his dad pulled into the driveway. How was he going to explain that he, young John Egbert, had inadvertently caused the end of the world by triggering a giant meteor? What was he to do?


	19. 002100 - 002104

Rose was growing annoyed. John had once again ejected the PDA from the captchalogue, making it very hard to contact him. At first she didn’t realize it, but when he was not answering, she checked the yard and found the device sitting on the neighbor’s lawn.

But, being the good and responsible friend she was, she used what little build grist the pair had left to fix the bathroom floor. Though there was not actually anything in it, it still looked better without the massive holes in the floor.

John, who was observing from the overlook just outside his bathroom, watched in horror as his father discovered the front door was not only locked, but there was a toilet in the backyard stuffed full of cake and fake arms. Not only had he to deal with his father, but there was also a meteor heading this way. Why was this day so ridiculous? He raced back to his computer to contact Rose.

"A decided to fix the bathroom, but we’re low on build grist," she explained.

"Build grist?" John typed in a panic. “Who cares about build grist when there’s a giant meteor headed this way?"

"I see. Do you think it has something to do with the game?" she typed back.

"I don’t know, maybe! What do I do?"

"Well," she typed, “it seems very likely." On her end, she scrolled through some walkthroughs. “The guides vaguely suggest an impending threat before they end. The already poorly constructed sentences become even more curt and ambiguous, as if written hastily and with a sense of alarm." She nodded and added “Actually, their dedication to updating the walkthrough under such circumstances is admirable."

"Wow, fascinating?" John responded urgently.

"If the meteor is a game construct, I think the only thing to do is to proceed, and try to solve the dilemma on the game’s terms," she deduced. “Try using the lathe. It says you can use the card on it, but isn’t more specific than that."

John sighed and frowned, but agreed. “Okay, I’ll do that."

"Really, it is a labor to read this drivel. If I read any more my brain will need to be spoon-fed from a jar. While it blows spit bubbles in a highchair." John rolled his eyes, but kept reading. She tended to like long-winded metaphors. “I think I will write my own walkthrough. That is, after we make sure you don’t die." He nodded at her response. This was logical in case anyone else ran into the situation.

The boy was just about to get up when another chum messages him. It was Dave again.

"I heard you got the box," he typed to John. “I hope you appreciate my heroic fatherly perseverance in getting it to you in my rough and tumble dirty wife-beater-ly sort of way. Also i hope you appreciate how many no-talent douches had their mitts on that bunny before you. It’s like a grubby baton in some huge douche bag marathon."

"Oh man, the bunny was awesome, but I don’t have time to talk," John replied. He was getting restless; his legs were shaking, wanting to stand up. “I’m playing SBURB, and it’s kind of a nightmare. Rose is breaking everything in my house."

"Dude I told you to steer clear of that game. And for that matter, you should probably wash your hands of flighty broads and their snarky horseshit altogether," the other by typed.

John ignored his friend, and kept explaining. “Now there’s a meteor coming, and i’m not even joking about that! It’s like a big asteroid or comet or something in the sky heading right for my house!!"

"Oh man. How big is it?"

"I dunno. Big, i guess. But, I gotta go! We’ll talk later if I am still alive and the earth isn’t blown up." With that, John raced off to the lathe, leaving Dave to type about his size speculations of said meteor, some of which included Rhode Island, Texas, and various other geographical comparisons.


	20. 002105 - 002113

Racing away from the computer, John decided the best course of action was to put the pre-punched card of the Totem Lathe. It was only logical, after all. Upon doing so, a series of chisels popped out of the slot above the table that held the object to be lathed. It appeared to be pre-configured, as if the card was a designated pattern for the machine to use.

Something was missing. John quickly realized that he needed something to lathe, but he had left the Cruxite downstairs on the Cruxtruder. He put a hand on his forehead, cursing his lack of foresight, and ventured out into the hall. He paused, seeing his father, but relaxed when he realized the older man was too busy puzzling over why there was a bathtub in the hallway.

Rose, though she could not communicate with John right now, figured this was a good time to return the toilet to the bathroom. Without much trouble, she extracted the cake and arms from the toilet and placed it on the Pogo toy. The small structure wiggled a bit, but didn’t protest under the weight of the armed pastry. Then, without even breaking a sweat, she moved the toilet back into the bathroom, grinning at her execution of the perfect crime. No one would possibly notice.

Having now retrieved the Cruxite dowel, John retreated back upstairs. Father had not reacted the way he expected and was now making his way back downstairs, presumably to do some baking. If only he knew how hard his son was working to save the world.

Without missing a beat, he placed the dowel on the machine and it automatically took ahold of it. He activated the machine and it whirred to life, lowering the chisels to make a strange shape out of the dowel. John carefully removed the new item and inspected it. It looked like a rough chalice. If he had more experience, he would have carved out the top and drank some water or orange soda from it. But the thought left his mind as quickly as it had come and he decided captchaloguing it was a better idea for now.

Pacing back to his computer, he decided the share the news with Rose.

"Alright, I used the lathe to make this blue shapey thing," he typed to her. “Now I guess I take it back to the Alchemixer again?"

But Rose didn’t respond. After a few moments he typed again to her.

"Hello????"

Still no reply. He was getting worried.

Suddenly, a message displayed in the window, and his heart leaped to his throat.

— tentacleTherapist [TT] is no longer connected! —

"Uh…" he typed, knowing full well she wasn’t even online to see.

A loud thump echoed from the hallway. He raced out to see the bathtub, which she had supposedly tried to move and got disconnected while doing so, now in a different place, completely blocking his exit. He thought of the strange blue timer, counting down to what was probably less than two minutes left. He struggled with the door, but the bathtub would not move.

"Don’t panic," he told himself. “She’ll be back soon." He looked around nervously and thought of the meteor heading straight for his house. "…right?


	21. 002114 - 002125

A familiar young lady stood in her dark bedroom. Much to her dismay, the power had been knocked out from the storm outside. Just moments before she was talking to another familiar young man via her wireless which has been disconnected.

She was antsy at the moment. The game she had been playing could mean an end to her friend if she didn’t hurry up and reconnect. But for some reason, instead of doing so, she was standing in the middle of her room having an excesstential crisis. 

Voices in her head were asking her what her name was. She knew what her name was, of course. Your own name is not something you can easily forget, but for some reason, she couldn’t remember it.

_Flighty Broad_ flashed in her mind’s eye. She grimaced. How could that possibly be her name? She shook her head to clear it and suddenly remembered.

"Rose Lalonde," she said aloud. Of course. That was it. She scratched her head, wondering why she could have forgotten this.

She looked her room, not realizing how messy it was. The bookshelf against the wall reminded her of her love if obscure literature and strange mythology, as well as studies in psychoanalysis.

Her mind flashed to her various works of fiction she had written herself and clenched her jaw nervously, hoping no one had seen them. She was very secretive about it.

Pieces of winter gear lay around, handmade from her knitting habits. She often went about that when she needed to relax after school or various other activities of stress. Either that or play video games  It all depended on her mood.

Something compelled her to look inside the small purple box at the foot of her bed, but she pushed it (both physically and mentally) aside. She did the same to her story journals and focused on something more important. Her violin. Before Captchloguing it, she played a short tune on it. It was a rather haunting number, but she preferred it that way.

Back in his own room, John had given up hope. The Meteor was headed straight for his neighborhood, so he took a moment with his Armageddon poster, offering an awkward kiss to Liv Tyler. In the back of his mind, he hoped Rose might come back and save his ass.

Rose was, in fact, trying to get things going. She had just Captchalogued her knitting supplies under her “Tree Modus stacking method" and was racing over to the window. She had been introduced to this captchalogue thing two years ago, so unlike John, she was near pro.

The storm outside seemed almost supernatural. Lightnight flashed, but in the distance, a red light loomed as if summoning her to action. She glanced around the scene - there was a massive laboratory on the other side of the trees bordering her backyard. Perhaps that facility would have a wifi signal she could borrow. Her eyes wandered over to the miniature mausoleum erected for her long dead cat Jaspers. 

"That grave site may provide a decent shelter," she thought aloud.


	22. 002125 - 002138

Upon deciding to captchalogue her laptop, which she was thankful for, seeing as a laptop wouldn’t fit in her pocket in the current state, she was annoyed to find adding her divice had made the deck unbalanced. Instead of a nice triangle, it now appeared to look like a wobble veriticle stack. Her sylladex modus, which controls how she can access things in the captchalogue, automatically adjusted, and a wave of calm swept over her.

_What a silly pet peeve,_  she thought. But she couldn’t change how she felt, so she shrugged and turned to collect her other things.

Also on the desk sat one of her favorite books:  _Grimoire for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious._  She couldn’t remember where she got it, but she’d had it for many years. She’d always have to to read it later, so she  quickly Captchalogued it and set off to look around the house to find higher ground and pick up a wifi signal. The grave site was only a last resort, she decided.

She shook her head to dismiss the thought and grimaced at the awful painting on the wall in the hall. It was of a crazy-looking wizard casting a ball of lightning as two unicorns dashed away in fear. Her mother liked to collect these things, and Rose had begun to think she only collected them ironically. She had to know how much the girl detested them. Perhaps her mother was collecting them (and all the other  _dreadful_  things in the house) just to anger her!

She made her way to the observatory, passing more and more awful artwork. It was at least less visable in the dim light. For once Rose was glad the electricity was out. Arriving at her mother’s door, she held her breath and sidled along the wall to avoid being seen or heard. Lightning flashed, illuminating a sillhoutte of her mother behind the door’s window. It reminded her of a horror film, where her mother might have been Count Dracula.

With a silent count, she dashed past the door, and didn’t stop until she reached the observatory entrance. Swinging the door open, the rain and wind rushed in, but she pushed past grimly. The things she would do for a friend….

The Observatory door was across an outdoor walkway with no handrail. If OSHA had seen this, they would have had a field day; she was at least three stories up.

"Here’s a good spot," she nodded, happy to be out of the rain. She withdrew her laptop from the Captchalogue only to have everything else fall out. Sometimes that modus was really stupid. She grimaced as the violin hit the hard floor. Usually she would have had a panic attack, but right now, there were more important things to worry about.

Peeking through the telescope revealed a disconcerting red flash through the clouds. She wasn’t sure what it was but it made her wary. She frowned and turned to her computer, placing it on the Grimoire to maximize its elevation. Time to reconnect to John. She hoped he was alright.


	23. 002139 - 002146

There was a nicely unsecured network on the laboratory. Though she was a little apprehensive about using it, desperate times called for desperate measures. It connected quickly, and soon she was back in the game with John.

John, having been pounding on his keyboard for the last five minutes, was near frantic. The timer was down to 40 seconds.

"Hurry up and open my door!" He typed angrily to Rose as she alerted him she was back online. “Not that it matters, but I’m probably dead no matter what!"

"Patience," Rose replied. “You still havn’t used the new totem."

"What are you talking about?" he exclaimed angrily, throwing his hands in the air. But he quickly remembered that his voice wouldn’t do him any good and typed a "???" in the Pesterchum window.

Though Rose could hear him, she didn’t respond to it. Instead she explained that no one had ever successfully created an item. She was referring to the GameFAQ guides, of which were sparse on this game. Though it was clear something strange was going on with the game and it was affecting the real world. But that didn’t make sense…did it?

"Do we have enough building grist to make the item?" John typed.

"According to the menu (or Antheum was it?), it seems to be a free item. it’s a wonder no one’s made it yet. But that speaks of its importance, being free," Rose explained. “Now, off you go."

At that, she removed John’s door, which apparently cost building grist. This game had no logic what-so-ever. While she was at it, she moved the bathtub back into the bathroom, despite its inability to be connected to any pipes. She shrugged guessing she should have done that earlier, but no matter now.

Meanwhile, John made his way to the Alchemiter where the Kernalsprite was going crazy. At least it wasn’t making weird chirping noises anymore. There were the three green blocks he had made earlier, still sitting on the machine. He supposed moving them out of the way first might be a good idea and perhaps would calm the sprite.

"Rose? A little help?" John asked the air. it seemed to work. The giant green cursor carried the blocks into the air and they dissappeared. On Rose’s screen, they were stored in the Paraphernalia Registry (more simply, an inventory) to be deployed at a later date if needed.

Placing the totem on the platform, the Alchemiter made a  _bloop!_  sound and a giant blue tree appeared on the larger circular area. A large blue apple fell from the tree and landed in John’s arms. He had a sudden urge to take a bite. It was so blue and shiny and delicious-looking. 

The meteor racing towards his home was drawing closer. It was so close now, he could see it just past the cloud. The apple suddenly became the least important thing in the world. He stared at the giant orange orb racing toward his house, blinking absent-mindedly. There was nothing he could do to stop it, so all he could do was watch.

Images of his father and everything he cared about flashed in his mind: all his posters and things he loved…

This was the end, he reasoned, coming to terms with it in his mind. Just seconds left now. The last thing he saw was a flash of white as everything he once knew went up in a massive mushroom cloud of fire and heat.

\--END OF ACT ONE--


	24. 002147 - 002154

**Many years into the future, but not too many…**

The desert rolled on for miles. Not just a few miles - hundreds of miles. Nothing but sand and sand as far as the eye could see. Just sand.

While normally, this might have been a rather dismal scene, a single trail of footprints had pasted itself against the tableau. The footprints looked human, but one could never be truly sure whether or not they were. The being that had made those footprints was but a distant figure against the blazing sun.

The figure raised its arm against the brightness, hoping to become aware of at least the general area he was in. He stood on top of a tall dune, looking about, but seeing no sign. Out of curiosity, his eyes wandered below the dune and much to his surprise, a large, round, object that appeared to be made of clean marble was wedged in his sandy hill.

His mind wandered on the possibilities of what it could be. Carefully sliding down the other side of the dune, he began brushing away the sand until a full disk was revealed.

_What is this?_  he thought. Instinctivly he placed his right hand on top of the disk and it flashed. He withdrew his hand quickly, but when nothing terrible happened, he put his hand back onto the disk. A strange, green symbol that appeared to be made by a spyrograph blinked on.

**Back in present day…**

Rose sighed, typing the last of the words into the GameFAQ’s guide she had decided was better than any other FAQ made for this strange game called SBURB Beta. While she had no idea this would have brought about the end of the world, she thought it better to warn people about it, if there were any people left to warn. She left a note at the bottom promising to try and play the game as best she could until she could no longer play, if only if it was for John and his sanity.

John, on the other hand, was no so luck to still be typing. After the asteroid hit, it didn’t destroy the house like he expected. He stood frozen, too scared to move, as he watched everything surrounding his house turn to darkness. The home and front yard sat on a massive pillar-like island in a sea of black.

The kernalsprite would have none of it. It seemingly exploded and split into two pieces: one made of black, and the other of light. The dark half sank down below the pillar-island, dissappearing into the thick smoke that surrounded it, leaving a whole in the cloud. The light half shot up into the sky, fading from view, and became a beacon, if dim. As the light half shone, a series of blue spyrographs appeared, and began pulsing.

John looked around, now alone. Or at least he thought he was alone. He jumped at the word “BOY" being shouted from seemingly nowhere. But as he turned, he discovered the kernalsprite had turned into a floating blue harlequin. His head spun. His instant reaction was to run, but the sprite followed him.

"YOU THERE BOY," the voice came again. John ignored it and kept running, confused and a bit afraid.

"BOY, QUIT ALL THIS SCURRYING AROUND." The voice was growing more annoyed. But this time he decided to respond.

"It’s John!" he shouted to the heavens. “John!"


	25. 002156 - 002162

"FINE, JOHN, GO BACK TO YOUR QUARTERS," the voice bellowed. John felt compelled to obey and soon found himself back in his room. There was a strange black sludge on the floor, so he tried his best to avoid it.

The voice came again. “JOHN, RESPOND TO YOUR FREIND UNIT."

Despite the strange language, the boy knew what the voice was talking about. He carefully made his way over to the computer and checked his Pesterchum.

It was Rose. She had asked if John was there quite a while ago and had seemingly got involved in something else, so her status was now idle.

"I’m here," he typed. “I don’t think I’m dead."

"I know," Rose typed back. “I’ve been watching you scramble around your room like a lunatic. You should have replied sooner."

"Oh, sorry, I was looking for my dad, but I can’t seem to find him anywhere."

"I’m sure he’ll turn up," Rose explained. “We have more important things to tend to right now."

"Yeah," John agreed. “Like where am I?"

"I don’t know that either. But I’ve determined your neighborhood was destroyed by the meteor. Wherever you were transported, it saved you from the impact." Rose seemed to know more than John gave her credit for. “I’ve been reading reports in the news. Over the last few days, there have been many smaller meteor collisions with people’s homes around the world, and they seem to be getting bigger. Your’s was the biggest they’ve identified so far."

John blinked in confusion. “Wow, okay, so the point is for us to save the world?"

Rose’s reply seemed carefully thought out, even though it was but one word: “Perhaps."

"Then what are we waiting for?" John typed frantically. “Let’s get moving!"

"Yes, but wait," Rose typed back. “We should retrieve your PDA…yet again." If she was here, John wouldn’t be surprised if she sighed right there. “It will help to keep tabs on each other while you investigate. I think I can get you closer to it if I can replenish our grist supply somewhat."

John had no idea how much grist they had. There was no way for him to see, so he had to trust Rose that this was the right thing to do.

"There may be a way to recycle some that we already used. I’ll meet you out on the balcony," she finished.

A thought occurred to John, despite the situation. "You never even wished me a happy birthday!" he blurted into the instant message box.

"I was working on something to send you, but I was running late with it. I didn’t want you to think I believed meager well wishes alone would suffice for the occasion." She paused. “That said, happy birthday, John."

John grinned, feeling strangely happy. His moments of revelry would have lasted longer if that booming voice from the heavens didn’t come back, seemingly with a vengeance.

"FIRST, TAKE THE FABRIC ITEM ON THE FLOOR THERE," it yelled.

John glanced around the room, but saw nothing that sounded even vaguely like what the voice meant. Then his eyes fell on a towel.

"Uh, this?" John asked the air. “The towel? Why?"

The voice didn’t reply, but he captchalogued the towel anyway. This seemed to please it.

“DO AS THE PURPLE TEXT SAYS. TO THE BALCONY," it commanded.

John shrugged and returned to the balcony where the circular platform of the Alchemiter sat. The harlequin kernsprite still waited there, floating near the door, as if waiting.

"WAIT. TAKE THAT. THE BLUE WOBBLEY THING."

"This?" John asked, picking up the totem that rested on the Alchmiter’s smaller platform. This was the one used to create the apple tree earlier, but being compelled to listen to this voice, John had no choice.

"JOHN. RECYCLE THE GRIST AS WAS DICTATED BY YOUR COHORT," the voice instructed quite loudly.

"What are you talking about?" John said, annoyed. He had no way to do this. It was something only Rose could do. “Are you stupid?"

"NO I AM NOT."

"Any help, Rose?" John said with an frustrated frown. If he had arms, he’d probably have them crossed.

His answer came in the form of the floating cursor moving about. It seemed to be busy, and if she’d taken the voice’s advice, she was getting more grist with it.

John’s assumptions were correct, confirmed by the precarious platform newly built from the balcony seconds later.


	26. 002162 - 002171

"JOHN, RUN ACROSS THE PRECARIOUS PLATFORM SWIFTLY," the voice boomed.

Still unsure where this voice was coming from, he peered down at the catwalk. 

"I don't know," he said, his voice shaking slightly. "It's a long way down."

"BOY I SAID MAKE HASTE ON THE NARROW CATWALK!" the voice boomed again.

"Stop yelling at me!" John demanded. "It's not helping! I really don't like this idea!"

"FINE. PROCEED AS YOUR LEVEL OF COMFORT DICTATES," the voice conceded. 

John grumbled and cautiously made his way on the platform. If he hadn't need to retrieve the PDA, he would have never had to do this. Thankfully, he didn't have to go far before Rose was able to reach the divice.

"NOW TAKE IT," the strange voice commanded.

"Okay! Relax!" John said, annoyed. He swiped up the PDA, stuffing it into his pocket. It automatically became Captchalogued, sending one of the harlequin figures he's store earlier flying into the night.

He looked at the PDA. It seemed he wasn't the only one trying to get ahold of his father. There was a collection of people he assumed to be men of his father's age discussing things like pipe and hat collections. Apparently, the strange voice person was watching, too, because it protested rather loudly.

"THESE BORING MEN ARE UNINTERESTING," it proclaimed.

While the voice was becoming annoying, John had to admit it was right. He decided to check Pesterchum on the PDA instead.

Rose was there, thankfully. "John, are you doing ok?" she'd typed. "You seem a bit tentative."

"I'm fine, I guess," he said, a little unsure. "I keep hearing this loud booming voice, but I can't tell if it's in my head or someone is actually shouting at me from somewhere."

"Perhaps it's an early sign of an anxiety disorder, or maybe post-traumatic stress?" she suggested.

John was unsure, but these seemed like logical answers. "Not sure," he responded.

"Well," Rose typed. "If you pull yourself together, there's a few more things we can try. We can prototype the kernalsprite again, if possible, but we need to hurry. My laptop battery's dying."

John nodded. "I'll head back inside, then."

"NO DON'T DO THAT. HOP OFF THIS LEDGE ONTO THAT CAR." It was the strange, booming voice again.

John held his head in frustration. "Are you crazy? That's incredibly dangerous!" he bellowed.

But the voice kept pestering him, urging him to do what it had commanded. John had to use all his mental strength to resist it. There was no way he was going to do that.

**Years in the future, but not many...**

The disk blinked again and slowly moved away. The figure watched in confusion and awe as it revealed a hidden tunnel beneath the sands. A ladder beckoned him down, and he did not resist.

The inside was full of strange machines, all appearing to be some part of a giant computer. The flashing lights gave off an eerie glow, revealing the apparel of the figure to be nothing but cloth strips and a strange triangular hat. Only one eye was visible, small and white within the wrappings.

The same Spirograph symbol appeared to be painted onto the power sources and inner workings of the machine. It seemed to be some sort of lable. There sat a large computer in the back of the room with four screens set in a perfect square. It was framed by a simple house design that seemed rather familiar. The screen in the top right was on, showing an image of a young boy holding a blue apple.

The keyboard beckoned him. But what would the figure type? He thought about it for a moment, then it came to him.

"YOU THERE. BOY."


End file.
